Industrial Applications of a Capillary Gas Chromatography/Fourier Transform Infrared System

Abstract

In this work, we describe the interfacing of a high-resolution chromatographic system featuring narrow bore gas chromatographic columns to a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer. Excellent chromatographic resolution, low nanogram sensitivity, and compound identification are demonstrated. Applications to the analysis of a petroleum distillation fraction and to a polymer sample, analyzed after pyrolysis, are presented. A vapor-phase library search system is used to identify compounds in both samples.

Supercritical fluid chromatography/Fourier transform infrared spectrometry with an automatic diffuse reflectance interface

“…The 1690-1655-cm"1 spectral region is characteristic of most quiñones, so four major peaks and one minor peak are seen in chromatogram B. Because the fourth and minor peak is due to acenaphthenequinone selective monitoring of that compound can be accomplished by changing to a spectral region between 1755 and 1690 cm"1, indicated by the single peak in chromatogram C. Because all of the compounds are aromatic, the 900-750-cm"1 region, which is characteristic of aromatic compounds (the out-of-plane bending mode of the C-H aromatic groups), can be monitored resulting in chromatogram D. The use of IR chromatograms to selectively monitor a separation according to compound functionality has been previously demonstrated for HPLC/FT-IR (3,8,15) and GC/FT-IR (16,17).…”

GC-FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometry) of Jet Fuels.

“…The first column of numbers in Table 1 power needed for such complex samples have been interfaced successfully with FTIR spectrometers in several reports (7,(14)(15)(16). Such reports usually contain infrared spectra that have been collected on-line and spectra of one or two standards that have been run to show the S sensitivity of the GC/FTIR method.…”

“…These standards usually represent low nanogram quantities of compounds which often contain a strongly absorbing functionality. Compounds which have been used include isobutyl methylmethacrylate (17,19), ethyl acetate (16,20), anisole (5) and isobutyl acetate (2). These standard models may not represent the type of compounds found in "real world" samples and thus may not represent the actual GC/FTIR sensitivity.…”

“…More narrow fused silica columns have been used for separation of an ink industry sample(6), a lacquer thinner(7), a petroleum distillate cut (16), and coriander oil (20). The fractionated samples provided were further concentrated in our laboratory using dry nitrogen as follows: Secondary volume reductions were performed in tapered 2 mL vials.…”

Analysis of hazardous wastes by fused silica capillary gas chromatography/Fourier transform infrared spectrometry and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry

“…The successful characterization of a complex sample by either GC/FTIR, GC/MS, or GC/FTIR/MS depends on the information content, spectrometric sensitivity, and chromatographic resolution of these hyphenated techniques. Several groups have demonstrated that indeed capillary GC/FTIR/MS (11,13) and GC/FTIR (3,14) measurements can be made successfully. We have previously reported a capillary (WCOT) GC/FTIR and GC/MS analysis of a synthetic mixture of priority pollutants (3).…”